23 – Rusckan village – A reckless plan

From the chamber where the crystal was set, emitting the faint hum that resonated in its very walls at the heart of the shield protecting the village, a strange energy seemed to coalesce. There was indeed something there, just like the demon had said, fueling the crystal.

David tapped the floor, meticulously trying to find a way down. It was there, somewhere below the chamber that he could feel the energy grow strong and thick. He had to go down and see with his very eyes.

Eventually, one large slab of stone echoed. The empty room below betraying the fact that the stone was not set on solid ground. Using his magic and telekinesis, he managed to lift the stone eventually. It took longer than he thought, and already loud noises were coming from outside. The demons were making their move, and the strain on the shield was already going up.

More and more energy was being sucked out of the vein underground, fueling the crystal that provided protection to the whole village. The muffled sounds of explosions far away, were the only things that were loud enough to reach this underground chamber.

Outside, it must have been hell on earth, David was sure. In here, it was better but the air was quickly saturating with ambient mana and fluctuating energies. A faint blue light radiated from below, coming in through the opening in the flooring that he made.

He went down.

A large cavern, dark and empty, was all there was. At its center rested just above the ground a large pulsating gemstone, clad in its own fluctuating energy fields. Impenetrable, as the failed attempt at taking it out or moving it with his mind showed David.

It was like trying to move a planet. Simply impossible.

He went back up. There was no point staying here, nothing that could be done from the depths of the earth. Outside, night was falling but the sky was lit by the bright explosions against the protective dome. Each one of them sent ripples through the glassy surface, displacing energies and ancient protective powers, ever weakening.

Only a few days, and then it would crack open and dissipate. Then, all would be over.

There was a small library hidden in an upper floor of the guild of heroes. It was dusty and dark, the blinders on the windows not even bulging rusted as they were. Never had they been used in the last few years, Griglir keeping the information quarantined to the point where nobody even thought there was a library there.

But David still found it, thinking it impossible that the guild didn’t have any books. A suspicious looking staircase, and then he was up amidst the dusty books.

One of them mentioned, and he found it after many hours of reading, something about the mineral veins that contained mana. The so called dragon veins, or ley lines.

Those, rarely, hosted a special kind of ingredient that could be consumed or used to concoct special kind of remedies. Things that, once properly taken, could do wonders. The book was not specific about what kind of wonders they could do, but he had a pretty good guess about that.

It was basically a magical power steroid.

And here, under this seemingly worthless village, a whole vein had condensed into one single of those gemstones, leaving behind the dark and empty cave that he saw. That gemstone was what the demons were after, the reason why the village had to go so that they could come and presumably take it.

The book also mentioned farming it, creating special structures around it. The uses were many and varied. All the more reason to want nobody close to it.

If he took it, if he managed to get the power of this stone, then he would be capable of vanquishing the demons. But how to do that, how to even get close to it? The energies around it were too strong, the gemstone itself refusing to even budge at his repeated attempts to move it.

He could not take it, and the book did not say anything about how to harvest it either.

Then, an idea came to his mind. He rushed down the guild building, startling the few elder villagers who were drinking inside, trying to ignore the loud explosions outside.

“Where are you going?” One of them asked, distractedly, like it was a chore to even speak.

“Back to the crystal.” David said as he left the building.

“What is he up to, now?” the old man muttered.

“Let him do his thing. He’s helped us this far.” The other fellow drinker said, and the two got back to their business.

David went down the chamber, back to the strange white gemstone. And then, he pulled it in his inventory. Immediately it disappeared, and he felt the crystal upstairs begin to weaken as the energies were not coming in to feed it anymore.

He had to act fast now, because the shield was going to fail very soon without anything to fuel it. He rushed out and towards the edge of the protected area. The encampment of the demons was just a couple hundred meters ahead, within shouting distance. Also within Mauser pistol distance, he thought for a moment.

“Hey!” He shouted. “I have a proposition for you.”

From one of the biggest tents, the leader demon got out and stretched. After he was informed of what was happening, he turned his face towards David and snickered. From this distance it was difficult to make out what was being said, but it was clear that he was annoyed and quite angry that he was being disturbed.

David, however, knew that as soon as he would bring out the gemstone the demon’s behavior would change immediately.

As the thumping steps of the horned figure got louder, he took a deep breath and concentrated. If this plan was successful, then the pain he felt so far with his respawns was going to be nothing in comparison to what he was about to feel.